


Bubblegum B*tch

by a_hand_outstretched



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Barbie Dolls, Blow Jobs, Drug Use, F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Marie Kondo clapping her hands together “I love mess”, brief mention of logan roy being his usual homophobic self, caroline collingwood's bad parenting, chekhov's lipgloss, ken and stew around 21, please imagine the finest early-2000's couture throughout this, shiv is around 18, submissive kendall, the E rating is for Ken and Stew in chapter 2, the boys in their natural habitat (a bathroom)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_hand_outstretched/pseuds/a_hand_outstretched
Summary: Shiv, Kendall, and Stewy hit the club.
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy, Stewy Hosseini/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	1. Shiv

**Author's Note:**

> Could be read as a sequel to my fic, "Who Gives A F*ck about An Oxford Comma?" 
> 
> Title from the song by Marina and the Diamonds.

Shiv is stretched out on a cream-colored leather couch in the basement. She’s flipping through channels, looking for NatGeo or Animal Planet, something she can watch once she’s blazed. She’s achingly bored, has been for days, but most of her friends are out of the city and it’s too humid to do anything outside. She can hear the doorbell buzzing repeatedly upstairs. Roman probably forgot his keys again. It’s almost annoying enough to make her get up to answer it herself, but there are footsteps coming down the stairs before she can bother to move. 

She already has her mouth open to tell Roman to fuck off when, to her surprise, it’s Stewy’s voice that she hears coming around the corner, his patented too-good-for-this sing-song tone, “Siobhannnnn, where in the fuck is your brother?” 

Shiv sits up on the couch and turns toward him. She hasn’t seen him much this summer, with Kendall barely around. He’s going for some sort of douche-punk look tonight — hair slicked back, carefully ripped black jeans — and she would laugh at him if he wasn’t somehow pulling it off. 

“Uhh, how should I know? Busy blowing his supervisor or delivering coffee or whatever the fuck he does now.” She waves her hand dismissively. She’d rather die than spend a whole summer listening to some ATN dickwad in a dead-end middle management position explain how best to file papers and suck up to her dad. It definitely seems to have killed what remained of Kendall’s personality. She glances at the delicate silver watch her mother gave her in lieu of attending her graduation ceremony. It’s only seven thirty. “I think Dad has him on some extra special bullshit assignment. He’s been getting home late.” 

Stewy rolls his eyes. “This fucking _internship._ ” 

He plops down next to her on the couch and raises his eyebrows to prompt her on the bong sitting on the coffee table. 

“Ladies first,” she says, flicking the lighter. She takes a hit, then slides it toward him. 

Stewy holds the smoke in for a long time, then exhales slowly, looking up at the tv. The remote slid somewhere between the cushions and they’re stuck on seemingly endless commercials. This one features a racially diverse group of little girls crowded around a table, watching a bubblegum-pink-business-suit-wearing Barbie doll strut from her beach house to her convertible to her office, complete with a faux corporate logo on the desktop monitor and a tiny Bluetooth earpiece. Stewy’s brow furrows in confusion at the thirty second ad. “Since when does Barbie, like, have a job?” he asks. 

Shiv scoffs. “Uh, since it’s 2001 and women have rights, asshole.” 

They look at each other, both of them mock-serious, before they burst into laughter. 

“Oh, I had no idea. Fucking c-suite Barbie. Where’s your fucking, uh, pantsuit, Shiv? You need a pink briefcase to store all your rights in?” 

“Shut up. Do you remember,” Shiv starts giggling again before she can get the rest of the words out and she has to wipe tears from her eyes. “Do you remember when I would make you guys play dolls with me?” 

Stewy snorts and leans forward to pick up the bong and take another hit. After, he says, “You had Kenny wrapped around your tiny fucking finger back then.” 

“Uh, I think I remember you joining in on the fun, Skipper.” 

Stewy shrugs. “I liked the outfits.” 

“Oh, Stewy,” Shiv says, false sincerity dripping from her voice, “did my dad thwart your potential to be, like, a fashion wunderkind? Were you just, like, on the cusp of a burgeoning career in design?” 

Stewy puts on an exaggerated frown and imitates Logan. “Fuck off, you queer little shits.” He laughs and snaps his fingers. “Nipped that right in the bud. I really have him to thank for my enduring heterosexuality.” 

Shiv smirks. “Oh, enduring? You’re totally wearing eyeliner right now.” 

“What, you wanna fuck around and find out, Siobhan?” He leans closer and pinches her side and she squirms away — less because of the pinch and more because she doesn’t know what to do with his playfulness. Typically any teasing he does around her is dismissive, but this — there’s no real heat in the question, but he’s _flirting_ with her, talking to her like she’s a real person instead of a bug or a houseplant or an unnamed extra in the background of Kendall’s life. 

She takes a hit to buy herself time to respond, overdoes it and starts coughing a little too hard. Stewy laughs at her and pats her on the back. His fingers there remind her of the way he held her when she kissed him last summer — he’d never brought it up, afterwards. Not with her, anyway. She’s pretty sure Kendall gave him the silent treatment for like a week because of it, which is basically years between the two of them. She wonders if the reminiscence might be mutual because his hand doesn’t move when she gets her breath back. 

She opens her mouth to say something, anything to break the tension, when there’s the sound of familiar footsteps on the stairs and the pressure from his fingertips disappears. 

Kendall’s shoving a frozen burrito in his mouth as he walks into the room. Shiv wrinkles her nose. Stewy hangs his head over the back of the couch to look at him. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Ken doll himself.” 

Kendall responds with his mouth full. “Hey, sorry I’m late, dude.”

“Shivvy’s been an excellent host, but, uh, so, what, are you gonna get changed and we go?” 

Kendall sighs. “I don’t know. I’m tired.” 

“What? You’re tired? You’re _tired_? I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” 

“It’s only Wednesday, dude,” Kendall sits down on the couch between them. “Work was a mess.” Stewy puts an arm across the back of the couch. Shiv catches the fact that the tips of his fingers just barely brush Kendall’s neck. 

She blows a raspberry at her brother as Stewy says, “Man, no one cares about your ‘job’. I had to fucking chaperone my cousin’s bulldog of a girlfriend around all last weekend to get us on the list for tonight.” 

“I’ll go with you instead,” Shiv offers. 

“Alright, sure,” Stewy says, as if it doesn’t make a difference to him either way. 

Kendall cuts in immediately with, “You are _not_ going.” 

“Why not?” Shiv demands. 

“Yeah, it’s 2001 and women have rights, Kenny. Didn’t you know?” Stewy plucks what’s left of the burrito out of Kendall’s hand and shoves it in his mouth. 

“Fuck you. What the fuck does that mean?” He goes all frowny as Stewy grins and Shiv laughs at him. “You guys are dicks. I’m not going to be your fucking babysitter, Shiv, and we both know your cousin books the shittiest fucking acts, Stew.” 

“Ugh. Rude. Don’t be an asshole,” she says. 

“You’re not invited,” he says, pointing at her. God, he’s so predictable, it’s almost more endearing than it is annoying. 

Shiv gets up on her knees on the couch and smooshes his face in her hands. She’s pouting now, bottom lip stuck out, enough of a cliche that Stewy rolls his eyes at her from behind Kendall. “Please, Kenny? I’m _so_ bored.” 

“Stop it.” Kendall pushes her hands away and makes to stand up, but as soon as he does, Stewy puts his hands on his shoulders to hold him in place. 

“I could bring friends?” Shiv offers, then racks her brain for who she might actually be able to call. 

“Which friends?” Stewy asks, digging his fingers into Kendall’s shoulders, half-massage, half-threat. 

“Uhhh… Liz?” Shiv says, to Kendall. She starts undoing his tie, tugging it little by little toward her once the knot’s undone. 

“Do we know Liz?” Stewy asks. 

“Short. Blonde. A bitch. Ken likes her.” 

Kendall closes his eyes and turns his face to the ceiling like he’s suffering the trial of the century. “I thought this shithole you’re taking us to was supposed to be ‘exclusive.’” 

Stewy hums. “I think we could swing plus-ones.” 

“Oh, fuck off. Are you fucking recruiting, dude?”

“It’s a soft open!” 

“Oh my God,” Kendall groans. 

“It’s still invite-only. C’mon, you know you love this shit. New space, free drinks, we get to do whatever we fucking want — hang with the band, bang a waitress, do a few lines on the roof, anything, dude.” 

“Ugh.” 

“That’s a yes,” Shiv declares. She throws the bunched up tie in his face. 

“Fine. Whatever,” Kendall says, resigned to his fate. Stewy ruffles his hair. 

“I’ll be ready in twenty,” Shiv says. She gets up off the couch and bounds up the stairs, but — never one to pass up an opportunity to eavesdrop — she pauses silently on the second-to-last stair to linger and listen to the boys’ conversation below. 

Kendall, in a voice that’s a little too monotone to be threatening, says, “You know if you fuck my little sister I’ll cut your dick off, Stew.” Shiv rolls her eyes. Intimidation was never his strong suit. 

Stewy, in that eat-shit tone, responds, “You’ve made that _abundantly_ clear, yes. But are you sure you can find the time these days? Maybe my dick would benefit from closer supervision.” 

Shiv hops up the last stair. 


	2. Stewy

“Hey,” Stewy snaps his fingers in front of Kendall’s face. Kendall’s been fucking weird and hardly any fun all night. Even now, as they’re talking, he keeps anxiously turning his head to scan the dance floor. Like, who gives a shit what Shiv’s doing? She’s a fucking adult. Not to be an attention whore, but, like, hello? Stewy’s right fucking here. 

“Uh-huh, yeah?” Kendall asks. 

“You want to take a break? We could…” Stewy jerks his head toward the back. Kendall perks up a little, but then he bites his lip. The lights flashing overhead are bluish, at the moment, and the color makes his face look washed out. 

“Oh — I don’t — I don’t have anything tonight," he says, quiet enough that it's difficult to hear him over the music. 

“What? You said you were on it.” 

“Um, yeah, I forgot.” 

“Ugh, dude.” 

“What, can’t you just get some?” 

“Oh, sure. Yeah let me go fetch some illicit drugs for you, Ken. Happy to be your errand boy, as always.” 

“Come on. I’ll owe you one.” 

Stewy looks at him skeptically. Promises, promises. He puts a hand on his shoulder and leans in close. “You better think of a good way to make it up to me, Ken, because I'm going to collect on that _very_ soon.” 

He has Kendall’s full attention now. He moves his hand to the back of his neck to give him a brief squeeze — a gesture that could maybe pass for platonic if Kendall didn’t lean into it quite so much. He sways slightly on his feet and mumbles, “Uh-huh, yeah,” and Stewy would bet all the coke in this club that he’s half hard already. Stewy looks past him to catch Shiv walking away from the men she was talking with on the other side of the room, tucking something down the front of her dress. Oh, that's just too fucking good to be true. He drops his hand. 

“Why don’t you go find what’s-her-name, huh? I’ll see you later.” He gently shoves Kendall toward the dense crowd. 

He takes off after Shiv, winding his way through the sweaty maze of bodies and then to the dimly lit hallways in the back of the venue. 

He grabs her elbow and she’s drunk enough that it doesn’t startle her too badly. She turns to face him with pursed lips that turn into a smile. She actually looks pleased, as though she was expecting this. He leads her back against the wall. In heels she’s almost the exact same height as him. There’s a sheen of sweat on her face and neck, bits of glitter sticking to her skin. The moisture is causing some curls to make their way back into her straightened hair. He runs a single finger through the damp hair framing her face. 

“No pink briefcase… where does Barbie keep her coke?” he asks. 

“Oh, please. Don’t be a hypocrite.” 

There’s a zipper that runs down the whole front of her dress. Stewy hooks a finger through the loop on the zipper and toys with it, the weight of his hand threatening to pull it down. “What happened to Miss Hospitality from earlier? I’d just ask you to share, but Kenny, though, now there’s a hypocrite.” 

Shiv rolls her eyes. “He’s oblivious.” 

Stewy laughs. “Yeah, he is. Generally. But not when it comes to you.” 

He tugs the zipper down slowly, not stopping until he reaches the base of her sternum and the pink edges of her nipples are just peeking over the tight fabric. He plucks the sweaty little baggie of coke that was nestled there and waves it in front of her face. 

“Asshole,” she says. He grins at her and she kisses him hard, her drunk-grabby hands cupping his face. Which, it figures. He kisses her back, lets her shove her tongue into his mouth. She tastes overwhelmingly like artificial strawberry, like chewing gum you might give to a kid you’re not fond of. He doesn’t love it. She wraps her arms around his neck and tries to tug him down the hallway toward the bathrooms. 

He pulls back and Shiv drops her arms. Her weird tasting lip gloss feels tacky on his mouth, and he thinks some of it is on his chin, too. He pops his lips. 

“You don’t want me,” she says. She’s pouting. He doesn’t, really. He couldn’t care less about Siobhan, except for the fact that she’s got nice tits that are currently pressed against him — she _is_ hot, and he’d fuck her just for the hell of it if he didn’t have to deal with Kendall afterward. He assumes his disinterest is the appeal for her, but he doesn’t have the time or patience for psychoanalyzing any more Roys. 

He hums, tracing the curve of a breast with his fingernail and raising goosebumps as he goes. “I don’t really want a lot of things. And yet...” He shrugs. 

“Is my brother one of those things, too?” 

Stewy’s getting tired of this game. He’s never noticed any physical resemblance between them before, but there’s something about the way her mouth twists upward, now — still expectant, because it hasn’t occurred to her that she won’t be given what she wants. He’s been on the receiving end of that look for almost 20 years. 

He kisses her again, briefly. “No need to be bitter, Shivvy. Maybe some other time.” 

He puts a hand on her stomach to hold the dress in place as he pulls the zipper back up exactly where it was. She shoves him away with a scoff, then turns on her heel to walk quickly away down the hall. He watches her go, takes a moment to mourn not getting his hands on her ass when he had the chance, and then goes his own way, looking for Kendall. 

He finds him in the crowd dancing with the girl Shiv brought along. He’s drunker than he was when he left — Kendall doesn’t really dance until he’s five or six shots in. Stewy puts a hand on his lower back and Kendall abruptly turns into him, their chests pressed together. Stewy is going to make some movement of apology to the girl — Liz? — but she’s already moving on. Kendall’s still swaying a little with the music. His face is eager. “That was fast. See, you make a good errand boy.” 

“Fuck you, asshole. Come on.” Stewy tugs him away again, back the way he came. Belatedly, he wonders if they’ll run into a pissy Shiv. They don’t — the hallway to the bathrooms is abandoned, just like he left it. The lighting is so low that when he pushes open the door to the men’s room the fluorescents are blinding. 

“You get coke?” Kendall asks, immediately. 

Stewy takes the baggie out and sticks a finger in. Tastes it. “Yeah. It’s good shit.” 

He leads them into the stall furthest from the door. He cuts three lines on the back of the toilet and does two of them. Kendall’s crowding in on him, trying to take the rolled up $20 bill from his hand. He tosses his head back and shakes — it really is good shit, he’ll have to thank Shiv, later — holds Kendall back with a hand against his chest. 

“Hey, c’mon,” Kendall says. 

“No, no, no, I don’t think so, bro. You owe me, remember?” Kendall rolls his eyes. Stewy puts his hand on the back of his neck and pulls Kendall close to him. His whole body buzzes in anticipation as he watches Kendall’s eyes flicker down to his mouth and back up again. Every time he manages to pull Kendall away like this a part of him doesn’t believe it will work like before — that Kendall won’t give in, or that it won’t feel so lightning hot to touch him, the novelty finally worn out. But every time it’s the same. He leans forward to kiss him, mouth open and soft. Kendall kisses back eagerly, his hands grabbing at Stewy’s waist. When they break apart, Kendall brings his thumb up to wipe the sticky lipgloss off his chin. 

“You taste like… fucking, Laffy Taffy, or something,” he says. 

Stewy grunts. 

“I like it, though.” 

“Yeah? Compliments aren’t really what I’m looking for, here.” He takes one of Kendall’s hands and presses it against his crotch.

Kendall rolls his palm over the obvious bulge there and kisses him again. He starts fiddling with the belt, the fly, then tries to pull down the skin-tight denim with one hand, then two. "Fuck — How did you fucking — get these on, dude?" he says, as he struggles. Stewy groans and does it himself, wriggling in order to get the jeans down just low enough on his hips. Kendall finally gets his hand around him and drops to his knees.

“Yeah, there you go,” Stewy mumbles, encouraging him. Kendall starts stroking his dick and Stewy licks a couple fingers and dips them into the baggie of coke. Kendall’s gaze flicks up to meet his, wide-eyed and anticipatory. Stewy briefly wonders if Shiv knows exactly what they’re doing right now. What would she think if she saw her brother like this? 

Kendall’s hand stills and he opens his mouth. “You’re like the world’s most fucked up baby bird,” Stewy says, affectionately. He gets his fingers in Kendall’s mouth and rubs along his gums. Then he does it again, and Kendall sucks on his fingers until the coke’s long gone and Stewy nudges him back toward his cock. He watches Kendall through half-lidded eyes, his head dropped back against the cold cement block wall. God, it’s good, the combination of the high and Kendall’s tongue. He’s really trying to earn it, with the way he’s moving over his cock. Stewy lets him do all the work, but he rests his hands in his hair and occasionally tugs, each time prompting a desperate noise from Kendall. 

It's not long before he's getting close. He taps Kendall’s forehead. “You gonna swallow, bitch?” 

Kendall makes a noise that’s something like a scoff and rolls his eyes again, still high and mighty even with his lips stretched like that around Stewy’s cock. It’s hot as shit.

“Like fuck you aren’t, you fucking—" Stewy struggles to get the words out, too out of breath to give them the authority he wants to, "lazy fucking cockslut. I don’t want a mess.” Stewy puts pressure on for the first time, pushing Kendall’s head down. He can feel him choke and he comes like that, holding him in place. Kendall’s fingers reflexively dig into Stewy’s hip and thigh, but he takes it, somehow still sucking when Stewy’s spent. 

Stewy lets go and Kendall pulls off with a gasp and falls forward. He catches himself with a hand on the ground as he coughs. Stewy takes a step away from him, just in case he pukes or something, and tucks himself back into his pants. 

“Ugh, what the fuck, dude.” Kendall starts bitching as soon as he gets his voice back, like he didn’t love every second of that. His face is a mess, chin shiny with spit and cum. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. Stewy chuckles and pulls him up from the floor. There’s a loud creak as the bathroom door opens, and then footsteps and the voices of two men drunkenly chatting as they piss. Kendall bites his lip and shakes his head, like Stewy’s going to start announcing, like, “Kendall Roy gives passable head,” or whatever, to all bathroom visitors. 

He presses Kendall against the wall, slots a leg between his, and puts his mouth against his ear to whisper, “Say thank you.” Kendall shakes his head again. Stewy grins and laughs silently at his annoyed face.

He’s got Kendall in the same position he had Shiv earlier, he realizes. It’s not _not_ hot. He kisses him and then — he’s keyed up as fuck and why fucking not? — he licks some of his own cum off the corner of his mouth. Kendall’s knees buckle and he stifles a groan, clutching at Stewy’s arms. As soon as the bathroom door swings shut he chokes out, “Thank you. Fuck, thank you." 

Stewy cups him through his pants and pats him on the cheek at the same time. “And thank _you_ for repaying the favor, Kenny.” 

He turns to unlatch the stall door and walk out. 


	3. Kendall

“You gonna take care of that, man?” Stewy drawls, gesturing to Shiv. She’s so wasted she’s half-passed out in the booth next to Kendall, her head resting in her arms on the tabletop. She always fucking does this — he never should have gotten her a fake ID in the first place. 

“Ugh, just put her in a cab or something,” Liz says. 

“I like you,” Stewy says, grinning at her. Kendall can guess by the way she leans over toward him that Stewy just put a hand on her leg under the table. He’s so fucking annoyed. 

“You’re the one who invited her!” he snaps, “And I’m not putting my sister in a _cab_ by _herself.”_ Stewy gives him a mildly amused look that says he knows exactly why Kendall’s mood took a turn for the worse tonight. Kendall rubs a hand over his face. Stewy brought him to this shitty club and left him with a hard on and one line of coke in this shitty club’s shitty bathroom, and now he has to deal with Shiv’s stupid sloppy lightweight bullshit — just like he _knew_ he would — and he’s too drunk to even properly articulate all these annoyances. 

“Okay, well, I think we’re going to get out of here,” Stewy says to him. 

“Really, dude?” is all he can say. 

“Yeah — see you around this weekend?” 

Fuck, it’s not even the weekend. He has to be at work in a few hours. Kendall flips him off and Stewy grins and pulls Liz up and out of the booth with him. Kendall watches them go, resenting the way Stewy’s arm hugs the curve of her waist. He finishes his drink in silence. He scrolls through the contacts in his phone, trying to remember the name of a friend of a friend’s dealer to see if he can score something in the morning to help get him through to lunch.

When his glass is empty, he shakes Shiv’s shoulder. She snaps awake, giggling like he just told her a joke. “C’mon, Shiv. We’re leaving.” 

“Aw, already?” 

“You’ve been fucking napping here for, like, forty-five minutes.” 

“Whatever,” she says, brushing his hand away and then reaching for it again when she gets dizzy trying to move out of the booth. He helps her stand up, wobbly on her feet. He drapes her mini leather backpack purse thing over her shoulder and brushes the hair back from her face like she’s an oversized doll. She wrinkles her nose a little, but otherwise doesn’t comment. 

He leads her out of the club as best he can, given how he’s approaching double-vision himself. When they reach the sidewalk, she stops and bends down to take her heels off. She tosses them with a little too much force toward the gutter. Kendall laughs despite his annoyance with the situation. “Shiv, don’t you want those?” 

“Fuck’em,” she says, laughing and doing a little barefoot hop-skip on the dirty concrete to demonstrate her new freedom. 

He walks away from the main entrance in order to call a cab. “Your feet are going to be disgusting,” he says to her over his shoulder. “You’re going to step on a needle and get fucking AIDS or whatever. It’s going to be a PR nightmare.” 

“No I’m not!” she shrieks, abruptly jumping on his back. He almost topples forward from the force. 

“Jesus fuck, Shiv!” Her arms squeeze a little too tightly around his neck. He get his hands around her thighs to support her and tries to straighten up. “You’re too heavy for this shit,” he complains. 

“You’re too weak!” She laughs, and he joins her. It’s almost impossible to walk like this, especially while drunk and laughing hysterically, but he does it anyway. This is actually _fun,_ he realizes. They used to goof around like this all the time. They make it about halfway down the block before he has to set her down. She pouts about it, then leans against a tree on the boulevard as he steps off the sidewalk to wave at a cab. She hugs her purse in front of her, digging around in it. She looks at her phone and then puts on more lipgloss, unsteadily. 

A cab pulls over. The driver looks them over with a critical glance. “$200 if she pukes,” he says to Kendall. 

“Whatever,” Kendall says. He grabs her hand and tugs her away from the tree and herds her into the car first. 

“Can we get pizza?” she asks, once they’re on their way. 

“No, we’re going home,” Kendall says. 

“Ugh!” she whines, then quickly moves on. Shiv’s a chatty drunk. She leans against him in the backseat, babbling about random shit. He mostly tunes her out, until she says, a little more coherently, “I wish you wouldn’t, Kendall.” 

“What?” he asks. “I am literally not doing anything.” 

“Why are you working for Dad? You don't even like it.” 

Kendall laughs. “What the fuck else am gonna do, Shiv? Go, fucking, work at Starbucks? This was always the plan. Plus, I _do_ like it. You just don’t get it because you’ve never had a real job.” 

“You _hate_ it, Kendall.” She shakes her head in defiance. “Personally — never. I’ll never do it.” 

Kendall can feel himself getting overly defensive. Shiv really doesn’t know shit — not about him or Dad or the company or how the fucking world works. “You’re just jealous,” he bites out. 

“As if.” Shiv huffs out a breath and turns away from him. She’s gone quiet — minutes of silence pass between them, the low thrum of late night Top 40 radio filling the empty space. He starts to feel a little bad for snapping at her. He watches people and buildings pass by outside and thinks it’s possible he _does_ hate it a little, but it’s not supposed to be fun, right? Especially not now, when he’s just getting in the game, proving that he’s got something other than his name to offer — or at least trying to live up to the name in the first place. 

Her fingers play with the zip on the front of her dress, flipping it up and down, up and down. She breaks the silence. “Stewy’s such a fucking dick, honestly.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Kendall agrees. Stewy could be a fucking dick, there’s no arguing that, but sometimes he could be a fucking dick in ways Kendall really, really liked. 

She hesitates, sneaks a look at him from the corner of her eye, then says, all-too-casually, “I know about you two.” 

Kendall’s throat instantly constricts. He tries not to show his panic, but he still stammers like an idiot and he can feel his face start to get hot. “I don’t — I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Calm down. I’m not going to _use_ it.” She rolls her eyes and he trusts her even less for it. “I mean, like I haven’t fucked most of my fucking friends.” She turns a little more serious, leans back against him and touches his hand. “Doesn’t even crack the — like, the top ten things we have wrong with us.” 

He needs her to stop talking. The thing with Stewy only works if he can convince himself no one else knows, that it doesn’t exist when other people are in the room. His throat is so dry he can hardly swallow. He realizes he’s been holding his breath. He forces himself to inhale. There’s the scent of artificial strawberries — and it’s… familiar? It makes something flare up in his gut that he doesn’t have the bandwidth to examine. “You smell like candy,” he says, because it’s all he can say. 

“Probably my lipgloss,” she says. She runs her tongue across her glossy lower lip. Fuck, _Shiv’s_ lipgloss? He can remember how it tasted on his tongue, the tacky feel of it under his thumb. 

“Did you —” he pauses, trying to find words, “You didn’t hook up with him, did you?” 

“Um, who are we talking about? And since when is that any of your business?”

Playing dumb is a shit look on her. “Since he’s my friend and he’s a dick and you’re my little sister and I’m not fucking okay with it.” 

She grins, cocky now, obviously trying to rub his face in it. “Why, because _you’re_ fucking him?”

“Shut up, Shiv.” World’s lamest comeback, but he’s drunk and confused and pissed and tired, and the stronger he reacts the less likely she is to let this go. 

“Uh-huh. You didn’t care that he took Liz home.”

“Maybe I just don’t want my sister to be fucking my friends? How is that so hard to understand?” 

“Why do you _care_ so much, Kendall? Are you jealous?” 

Kendall loses the ability to breathe again. He knows she meant to imply he’s jealous of _her_. He knows that. But, unbidden, he imagines Shiv pressing him against the wall like Stewy did earlier. Looking up at her from the floor. Her fingers in his mouth. Her hand in his hair, pushing his head — 

“No!” he almost yells it as he snaps back to reality, “ _Obviously_ not.” Fuck, Stewy really did a number on him earlier. That’s what this is. He should have just jerked off in the bathroom or found someone else, avoided this latent horniness manifesting in the most fucked up way. 

“I think you’re jealous,” Shiv says again, and he really can’t take much more of this. 

“Would you fucking stop? It’s just fucking WEIRD, Shiv. Okay?” 

“I’m a big girl and I’ll do whatever and whoever I want, so get over it, Ken. By the way, you weren’t this fucking grumpy all the time before you started working for Dad,” she says. She lifts his hand up so she can tuck herself under his arm, trying to slip right back into the sweet little sister role. Kendall wants to jump out of the car. “Let’s go to Mom’s.” 

Caroline has a place on the Upper East Side, a gloomy townhouse that sits empty between visits, which have gotten fewer and farther between in the years since the divorce. She claimed to have a terrible cold, back in May, when she said she wouldn’t be coming to Shiv’s graduation.

“You hate it there,” he says, careful with his words. 

“But I don’t want to go home right now. Please? I remember the door code, I think.” 

She’s looking up at him, leaning into him, begging. He’s acutely aware of every inch of their bodies that is pressed together right now. That cloyingly sweet candy smell sticks in his throat. He closes his eyes, turns toward the window, as if that will stop her. 

“Can’t we just hang out for a while? It’ll be funnnnn.” 

“Why are you being so…” He’s not sure how to describe it — clingy? She’s toying with him for some unclear purpose and it feels dangerous; he’s a prey animal on-edge. “Since when do you even want to spend time with me?” 

“Maybe I’m jealous,” she says, softly. 

Kendall turns his face back to her abruptly, nose bumping into her head. He pushes her back, searches her face to see if she’s telling the truth. He can’t fucking tell. Her eyes are glassy with alcohol, widened and pleading, but there’s the glint of something sharp there. 

“What does that mean?” he asks. 

Shiv just shrugs. 

He should say no. Why is he so mixed up? Why can’t he come up with one reason, one clear excuse? He looks down at his watch, as if the time has any bearing on this decision. He looks at the cab driver, the nearest thing to a higher power available, but he is ignoring them both. He should say no. She’ll drop it and move on. This is just a random, drunken whim. 

But then again. Why is it such a big deal? What are they going to do in that big empty house, anyway? Raid the wine cellar? 

“Kenny,” she says, somewhere between a whimper and a demand. 

“Yeah,” he says, and suddenly he can breathe normally again. It’s a genuine and surprising relief, giving her what she wants. The feeling seeps through him like cool water in his veins, just like it did when he got on his knees in the bathroom at the club. He watches Shiv’s hand move. It hovers briefly over his leg, then wraps around the lower part of his thigh in a brief squeeze of thanks. “Yeah, okay. We’ll go.” 


End file.
